Rosalind Franklin Society Proudly Announces the 2022 Award Recipient for Cancer Biotherapy and Radiopharmaceuticals

Alpha particle emitting radiotherapies are of great interest for the treatment of disseminated cancer. Actinium-225 produces four alpha particles through its decay and is among the most attractive radionuclides for use in targeted radiotherapy applications. However, supply issues have limited availability and increased cost for research and translation of Actinium-225 conjugated agents. To meet this challenge, several new routes for Actinium-225 production are being investigated, including accelerator produced methods that introduce other Actinium isotopes. Notably the long lived Actinium-227. We investigated the impact of Actinium-227 and daughters in the radiopharmaceutical quality control evaluation of an Actinium labeled peptide under good manufacturing practices. The radiolabeling results from the differ ent sources of Actinium produced material with subtle but detectable differences. Peptides produced using Actinium 225/227 material may be suitable for translation, but are accompanied by new radiopharmaceutical pro cessing and clinical release challenges.